William Bernhardt - Naked Justice

Ben held no illusions that she might be talking about him. She pushed herself creakily to her feet, drawing herself up to her full five-feet-four height, and tweaked Joey on the nose. He batted her hand away.

Mrs. Marmelstein leaned into his tiny face. “Are you my little pumpkey-wumpkey?”

Joey looked off into the distance.

Ben gave Joey a gentle shake. “Joey, say hello to Mrs. Marmelstein.”

Joey didn’t.

“C’mon, Joey. If you’re rude to the landlady, we could end up sleeping under the Eighth Street bridge.”

“That’s all right.” Mrs. Marmelstein pinched Joey on the cheek. “We’re just not very sociable today, are we?”

Or any other day, Ben thought. “Well, we’d best go on in. I expect Joni is waiting—”

“That reminds me. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Benjamin.”

“Really?” he said, fearing the worst. A few months before, he had taken her to a doctor’s appointment, and the man had pronounced the word they had been dreading—Alzheimer’s. Mrs. Marmelstein had always been a bit dotty, but that diagnosis had put her occasional eccentricities in an entirely new light. Sometimes, she was totally lucid. But at others … “What is it?”

“Well …” She glanced at Joey, then back at Ben. “It’s an adult matter.”

That piqued his curiosity. He spotted Joni, the teenager who watched Joey when he wasn’t at school and Ben couldn’t be at home. She was standing in the front vestibule of the house. He dropped Joey to the ground. “Okay, pardner. Joni will take you upstairs. I’ll be in to start dinner in just a few minutes. Okay?”

Joey waddled up the front porch where Joni was waiting for him.

“Okay,” Ben said after Joey was inside. “What’s this adult matter?”

“Well …” Her voice dropped to hushed tones. “… it’s about Joni.”

“I thought you liked Joni.”

“I adore Joni. You know that. And goodness how she has matured since you asked her to be Joey’s nanny. But I do believe she’s been having”—Mrs. Marmelstein rocked forward on her toes and whispered—“gentleman callers.”

Ben suppressed his grin. “You mean Booker?”

She fidgeted with her trowel. “I mean the black gentleman, yes.”

Ben placed his hand on her shoulder. “Booker’s okay, Mrs. Marmelstein. I have the utmost confidence in him.”

“You don’t think he … consorts with the wrong element?”

Well, there was that minor business of being a member of a North Side gang, but he seemed to have extricated himself from that mistake. “I think he’s fine. And he’s a great playmate for Joey. Very energetic.”

“But that’s just it. Having him around so much …” She turned to one side and stared down at the grass. “Mind you, I don’t want to be the kind of landlady who’s always interfering in her tenants’ business.”

“Oh, heaven forbid,” Ben said with a straight face.

“At the same time, I can’t help but worry that, with the two of them together in your apartment so much”—her voice dropped to the point of near inaudibility—“people will think there’s something romantic going on.”

In fact, there had been something romantic going on for the past six months, but Ben suspected that this was not the time to bring Mrs. Marmelstein up-to-date. “You know, Joni’s parents have the apartment just next door to mine. And she and Booker are both eighteen now.”

“I don’t care if they’re eighteen or eighty. I don’t allow any hanky-panky in my house. You know that, Benjamin!”

“Yes, yes, I know. But I think it will be okay. And you know how I depend on Joni. I would never have been able to keep Joey without her.”

“Well, yes …”

“And you like having Joey around, don’t you?”

“You know I do. He’s such a sweet little thing. Such a mind of his own.”

“And you wouldn’t want me to lose him, would you?” Being just a tad manipulative, Ben told himself, but any port in a storm.

“Of course I wouldn’t.”

“Good. So let’s not bother Joni and Booker. I promise I’ll personally police the situation and ensure that nothing untoward occurs.”

She hesitated a moment. “I suppose it might be all right then.”

“Good. I’d better get dinner going.” He started toward the porch.

“Oh, Benjamin, today was my baking day. I put a nice fresh fruitcake on your kitchen counter.”

“Thanks …”

“Don’t ear it all yourself. Give some to Joey, too. Little boys love cake.”

“Actually, I think it’s a choking hazard.” Ben wondered if he could use the same excuse for himself.

Chapter 6

APPRENTICE POLICE OFFICER KEVIN Calley still held illusions that he might get home early when the squawk of the police radio shattered his dream.

He snapped up the handset. “Yes?”

“Ten-four, Kevin. This is the Box.” The Box was the name given to the daytime switchboard officer for reasons long lost to antiquity. “Gotta 986 at 1260 South Terwilliger, which I believe is on your way home. And since you are technically still on duty …”

Calley silently swore. There went the early Friday night on the town he and Marie had planned. Boy, would she be pissed.

He took down all the details and made a minor course correction toward Terwilliger. Not that he minded working; it was, after all, why he had become a policeman. It was just that this was the end of his first week on the job—first week out of the academy, first week driving his own patrol car. Mostly traffic work, but that was all right for now. You couldn’t expect to catch the Kindergarten Killer the first week. But he and Marie had planned a little party to celebrate the successful conclusion of his first seven days as a peace officer. They and a few friends were going out to In Cahoots, out at Seventy-first and Memorial, to down a few tall cool ones, cut a two-step, get a little rowdy, and generally have a good time. He’d signed out early—after arranging for someone else to cover for him—just so they could get a start on the evening, get there before all the good booths by the dance floor were taken.

It was great going home to Marie these days. There was a real gleam in her eyes when he came home in the evening wearing his shiny new uniform … and she had other memorable ways of showing her pleasure as well. She was proud of her little boy in blue. It had made a great difference in their marriage. No question they’d gone through some rough patches, especially in the early days. Things were looking up, though. He used to sneer when his father told him money made the world go round, but the fact was, a steady paycheck could eliminate a hell of a lot of marital stress. After a year or so, he’d have Marie out of the trailer park and into a real honest-to-God house like she deserved.

Why did it have to be a domestic disturbance, though? He could live with issuing a traffic ticket on his way home. A warning, if he was pressed for time. But like all cops, he hated domestic calls. They were never easy, never satisfying. If you caught a bank robber, well, great, job well done. But you got no applause from a domestic call. Sometimes it wasn’t serious, just some spouse trying to up the stakes in an ongoing fight by calling in the police. When it was serious, though, the issues were even more complicated. If you arrest a wife beater, at best you’ve spared some people some violence at the cost of breaking up the family. More often, though, the police were put in the position of trying to convince a battered woman to prosecute, which they usually wouldn’t do. Even if the police had been out several times before. It was amazing how many women would allow themselves to become punching bags—covering up, telling lies, denying reality, even when it smacked their face like a bare fist.